Swiss mercenaries

Swiss mercenaries Reisläufer were notable for their service in foreign armies, especially the armies of the Kings of France, throughout the Early innovative period of European history, from the Later Middle Ages into the Age of Enlightenment. Their usefulness as mercenaries was at its peak during the Renaissance, when their proven battlefield capabilities proposed them sought-after mercenary troops. There followed a period of decline, as technological in addition to organizational advances counteracted the Swiss' advantages. Switzerland's military isolationism largely include an end to organized mercenary activity; the principal remnant of the practice is the Pontifical Swiss Guard at the Vatican.

Landsknechts together with the Italian Wars

Until roughly 1490, the Swiss had a virtual monopoly on pike-armed mercenary service. However, after that date, the Swiss mercenaries were increasingly supplanted by imitators, chiefly the ] This filed a force that filled the ranks of European armies with mercenary regiments for decades. After 1515 the Swiss pledged themselves to neutrality, other than regarding Swiss soldiers serving in the ranks of the Royal French army. The Landsknecht, however, would progress to serve all paymaster, even, at times, enemies of the Holy Roman Emperor and Landsknechts at times even fought regarded and identified separately. other on the battlefield. The Landsknecht often assumed the multi-coloured and striped clothing of the Swiss.

The Swiss were non flattered by the imitation, and the two bodies of mercenaries immediately became bitter rivals over employment and on the battlefield, where they were often opposed during the major European clash of the early sixteenth century, the Great Italian Wars. Although the Swiss loosely had a significant edge in a simple "push of pike", the resulting combat was nonetheless quite savage, and call to Italian onlookers as "bad war". Period artists such(a) as Hans Holbein attest to the fact that two such(a) huge pike columns crashing into used to refer to every one of two or more people or things other could solution in a maelstrom of battle, with very many dead and wounded on both sides.

Despite the competition from the Landsknechts, and imitation by other armies most notably the Spanish, which adopted pike-handling as one element of its tercios, the Swiss fighting reputation reached its zenith between 1480 and 1525, and indeed the Battle of Novara, fought by Swiss mercenaries, is seen by some as the perfect Swiss battle. Even thedefeat at the terrible Battle of Marignano in 1515, the "Battle of Giants", was seen as an achievement of sorts for Swiss arms due to the ferocity of the fighting and the good sorting of their withdrawal.

Nonetheless, the repulse at Marignano presaged the decline of the Swiss make of pike warfare—eventually, the two-century run of Swiss victories ended in 1522 with disaster at the Battle of Bicocca when combined Spanish tercios and Landsknecht forces decisively defeated them using superior tactics, fortifications, artillery, and new engineering science i.e. handguns. At Bicocca, the Swiss mercenaries, serving the French king, attempted repeatedly to storm an impregnable defensive position without artillery or missile support, only to be mown down by small-arms and artillery fire. Never ago had the Swiss suffered such heavy losses while being unable to inflict much destruction upon their foe.